Most disc brake arrangements for rail vehicles are of a type in the art usually referred to as the caliper type and having two legs connected to each other at an intermediate portion. The free end of each leg is provided with a pad holder and a brake pad, whereas the opposite ends thereof are actuated by a brake cylinder often incorporating a built-in slack adjuster. The slack adjuster may, however, in certain cases be arranged somewhere else in the disc brake arrangement, for example as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,645,364, where it constitutes the connection link between the two legs or levers of the caliper.
Although many intermediate variations may be found a second but still less usual main type of rail vehicle disc brake arrangement is the yoke type, where a substantially stiff yoke extends around the disc to be braked and a brake force is applied from said yoke, for example by means of a brake cylinder on the yoke at the disc. A relatively recent and typical example of such an arrangement is shown in GB No. 2 018 918 but also GB No. 1 236 877 is illustrative.
The known arrangements suffer from different disadvantages, some of them having regard to specific applications, and it is of utmost importance to improve the versatility of the arrangement so as to allow the use of a certain arrangement with only relatively minor modifications for a great variety of applications. In other words: it is desirable to obtain an arrangement consisting of relatively few interchangeable components usable for a great variety of applications on different kinds of vehicles and bogies with a low space requirement, low price, low maintenance cost and so on.